Project description:Short sleep duration is associated with adverse metabolic, cardiovascular, and inflammatory effects. Co-twin study methodologies account for familial (e.g., genetics and shared environmental) confounding, allowing assessment of subtle environmental effects, such as the effect of short habitual sleep duration on gene expression. Therefore, we sought to investigate gene expression in monozygotic twins discordant for actigraphically phenotyped habitual sleep duration. Eleven healthy monozygotic twin pairs (82% female; mean age 42.7 years; SD=18.1), selected based on subjective sleep duration discordance, were objectively phenotyped for habitual sleep duration with two-weeks of wrist actigraphy. Peripheral blood leukocyte (PBL) RNA from fasting blood samples was obtained on the final day of actigraphic measurement and hybridized to Illumina humanHT-12 microarrays. Differential gene expression was determined between paired samples and mapped to functional categories using Gene Ontology. Next, a more comprehensive gene set enrichment analysis was performed based on the entire PBL transcriptome. The mean 24 hour sleep duration of the total sample was 439.2 minutes (SD=46.8 minutes; range 325.4 to 521.6 minutes). Mean within-pair sleep duration difference per 24 hours was 64.4 minutes (SD=21.2; range 45.9 to 114.6 minutes). The twin cohort displayed distinctive pathway enrichment based on sleep duration differences. Short sleep was associated with up-regulation of genes involved in transcription, ribosome, translation and oxidative phosphorylation. Unexpectedly, genes down-regulated in short sleep twins were highly enriched in immuno-inflammatory pathways such interleukin signaling and leukocyte activation, as well as developmental programs, coagulation cascade, and cell adhesion. Objectively assessed habitual sleep duration in monozygotic twin pairs appears to be associated with distinct patterns of differential gene expression and pathway enrichment. By accounting for familial confounding and measuring real life sleep duration, our study shows the transcriptomic effects of short sleep on dysregulated immune response and provides a potential link between sleep deprivation and adverse metabolic, cardiovascular and inflammatory outcomes.
Project description:Comparison between groups of monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins enables an estimation of the relative contribution of genetic, shared and non-shared environmental factors to phenotypic variability. Using DNA methylation profiling of ~20,000 CpG sites as a phenotype, we have examined discordance levels in multiple tissues in neonatal twins. MZ twins exhibit a wide range of within-pair differences at birth, but show discordance levels generally lower than DZ pairs. Within-pair methylation discordance was lowest in CpG islands in all twins and increased as a function of distance from islands. This was largely independent of distance from transcriptional start site in promoters without CpG islands. Variance component decomposition analysis of DNA methylation in MZ and DZ pairs revealed a low mean heritability across all tissues, although a wide range of heritabilities was detected for specific genomic CpG sites. The largest component of variation was attributed to the combined effects of non-shared intrauterine environment and stochastic factors. Regression analysis of methylation on birth weight revealed a general association between methylation of genes involved in metabolism and biosynthesis, providing further support for epigenetic change in the previously described link between low birth weight and increasing risk for cardiovascular, metabolic and other complex diseases. Finally, comparison of our data with that of several older twins, revealed little evidence for genome-wide epigenetic drift with increasing age. This is the first study to analyse DNA methylation on a genome scale in twins at birth, further highlighting the importance of the intrauterine environment on shaping the neonatal epigenome. Data from cord blood mononuclear cells (CBMCs), human umbilical vascular endothelial cells (HUVECs) and placenta from 22 MZ and 11 DZ pairs with one replicate sample
Project description:Comparison between groups of monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins enables an estimation of the relative contribution of genetic, shared and non-shared environmental factors to phenotypic variability. Using DNA methylation profiling of ~20,000 CpG sites as a phenotype, we have examined discordance levels in multiple tissues in neonatal twins. MZ twins exhibit a wide range of within-pair differences at birth, but show discordance levels generally lower than DZ pairs. Within-pair methylation discordance was lowest in CpG islands in all twins and increased as a function of distance from islands. This was largely independent of distance from transcriptional start site in promoters without CpG islands. Variance component decomposition analysis of DNA methylation in MZ and DZ pairs revealed a low mean heritability across all tissues, although a wide range of heritabilities was detected for specific genomic CpG sites. The largest component of variation was attributed to the combined effects of non-shared intrauterine environment and stochastic factors. Regression analysis of methylation on birth weight revealed a general association between methylation of genes involved in metabolism and biosynthesis, providing further support for epigenetic change in the previously described link between low birth weight and increasing risk for cardiovascular, metabolic and other complex diseases. Finally, comparison of our data with that of several older twins, revealed little evidence for genome-wide epigenetic drift with increasing age. This is the first study to analyse DNA methylation on a genome scale in twins at birth, further highlighting the importance of the intrauterine environment on shaping the neonatal epigenome.
Project description:The exploration of copy number variation (CNV), notably of somatic cells, is an understudied aspect of genome biology. Any differences in the genetic make-up between twins derived from the same zygote represent an extreme example of somatic variation. We studied 19 pairs of monozygotic twins with either concordant or discordant phenotype using two platforms for genome-wide CNV analyses and show that CNVs exist within pairs in both groups. These findings impact our views of genotypic and phenotypic diversity in monozygotic twins, and suggest that CNV analysis in phenotypically discordant monozygotic twins may provide a powerful tool in identifying disease predisposition loci. Our results also imply that caution should be exercised with the interpretation of disease causality of de novo CNVs found in patients based on analysis of a single tissue in routine disease-related DNA diagnostics Keywords: copy number variation, concordant and discordant monozygotic twins
Project description:Human intelligence demonstrates one of the highest heritabilities among human quantitative traits. Phenotypically discordant monozygotic twins provide a way to identify loci reponsible for the phenotypical differences. We performed comprehensive DNA methylation analysis in monozygotic twins manifesting differences in IQ scores. Genes with significantly different methylation status are considered as candidates related to human intelligence.
Project description:Genome wide DNA methylation profiling of Rett syndrome monozygotic twins. The Illumina Infinium 450k Human DNA methylation Beadchip v1.2 was used to obtain DNA methylation profiles in primary skin fibroblast cells from Rett syndrome monozygotic twins.